Summer Solstice tonight. Longest day of the year, is that today or tomorrow? Both will be nice and long. Normally I have a twinge of sadness as reaching the Summer solstice means the days will start getting shorter. But not noticeably until late August/September. I hardly noticed the days getting longer over the past few months. What is it that I can become so distracted not to notice these things? I think most of us are like that.
Here's a link about the Strawberry Moon and also a link to the live feed of the full moon from an observatory in the Canary Islands. They are showing a countdown to the live feed right now. Looks like it'll be around 7pm EST. http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sc...are-thing.html First I'll find my moon in my sky here and then check out the feed for the Canary Island view of the moon.
Foodwise, today I am kicking sugar to the curb. I've been doing pretty good with that but I am making it official today. I am also going to drink 3 litres of water. I have a 1.5liter bottle so two of those will benefit me greatly. I know this as I woke up puffy. DH and I went for a evening walk last night and I was out for several hours in the really intense heat and then the day before I had lifted and carried lots of stuff for market set up. I was sore and tired and dehydrated and I have just held onto water weight. Drinking more water is probably the single best thing I can do right now besides walking more. I am going to stay especially focused on this for the coming week. In addition, I am making and drinking green juice everyday his week. Weighed this morning and saw 267.0.
nationalparker I am going to find my pink book today and begin it tomorrow if I find it. Realistically, I won't be 100% New Food Plan until after this coming weekend passes. But I can begin Beck again anytime. (Thank goodness).
Back home and I must say I feel rather guilty about our weather. Cool breezes and high 70s which is 20 degrees cooler than normal. I'll take it. It should heat up the later part of the week. Pretty interesting being in the golden state last night during Game 7. We are Cavs fans but only DS rooted. I was out on a porch with DH overlooking the bay. We spent a wonderful day back at the exploratorium for Father's Day. I bought a yearly membership. DS is fascinated with all things science-y and could go everyday. The special exhibit was "Strandbeests" which are fascinating "living scupltures" by a physics dude who feels he is evolving a species from pc pipe and strip ties.
I have to give myself credit all over the place even though the scale hasn't budged. I tracked everyday. Let everyone go to dinner some nights while I ate a WW frozen meal. Made public my diet and people starting making a game of it saying "Is it point worthy?" I walked and walked - to Pier 39, on beautiful Stinson Beach, on Spring Lake in Santa Rosa. I will NOT let myself get discouraged by the number. I know from Beck there is a Boomerang effect of starting to eat because of frustration. I am just going to keep tracking and let weight take care of itself.
KarenRN: like nationalparker, I am going to have to wait until I retire to plan big hiking trips. Long vacations are set aside for our family goal of visiting all NBA venues. We can only travel between Thanksgiving and March 30 because of the farm. Summers ar now for DS - boy scouts, classes, and cousins. I'm sorry about the heat in Tucson. Those mountains must be calling to you. I think of the Native Americans who lived there long before air-conditioning.
BBE: What a gift to have a family of non-dramatics. I guess they all live in my family
Still catching up with personals this week. The goal for this summer vacation week is tracking and exercising.
karenrnI will not complain about the "heat" here! I am a hot wimp!
weight is up even though I have been on plan. Just one of those weeks. credits - weighed and logged. dh wanted cookies for fathers day so I made some last night and it was weird, I didn't even desire them. It wasn't like I resisted, tey just ad no appeal. and the h key on my keyboard is dying. It only types if I hit it really hard and then it works for awhile and ten quits again.
I'm just flat-out struggling and not just with this. I'm not sure why but I'm just in a "whatever" mentality and really less invested in getting things done. I set four goals for my healthy today - ride the exercise bike for just 45 minutes, drink more water, get out the Beck book and read as much as I need to and no snacking. So far ... I actually got on the bike for 45 minutes, pedaling slower than I've probably ever pedaled, but did it. Not sure if I bent the rules by eating half of my lunch a bit before noon and the other half a little while ago. It was the same portion (salad early, entree late). I'm viewing it as being better able to get home and not snack.
Was hoping to be able to sit outside this evening with the twinkling candles along the patio edge and garden edge, but they're calling for moderate storms. I, too, think of the days shortening as time slowly grinds closer to the dark winter, but need to celebrate the sunny and bright summer first!
OneByOne and Karen - Glad to have company on the Beck review. I need the oomph and push along at this point.
Ennay - You have me reading your note in a terrible cockney accent. T'ey 'ad no appeal! HA
Maryann - Great job on your SF trip and Father's Day. Sounds like you did everything you could to follow the path. Fantastic!
Bill - Glad you're back and what a wonderful celebration that sounds like. I can't remember a time for a family gathering that we didn't have issues with one person and then that created so many other issues. Ahhh, Southern BBQ. I enjoy a bit whenever we go home.
nationalparker lol! guv'na would ye loike a morsel? It is so ard to get back on track sometimes. I wis I could figure out wy sometimes I can go weeks totally not struggling and oter times I can't even make it a few ours. For cripes sake, it is totally dead now. usband is an IT guy, surely tere is an extra keyboard around ere somewere.
Your callenge, sould you coose to accept it: deciper my posts!
Still working my boring food plan and starting to really love how easy this is! May it last.
BillBlueEyes: so glad that your wedding weekend was fun. The Atlanta Botanical Garden sounds great! Maybe we'll have to try an actual layover there sometime instead of just spending an hour or two in the airport.
Lexxis: so cool that you have the physical ability, skills, and friends to handle a roof leak.
karenrn: we're expecting a couple of 100-degree days this week. We sometimes go all summer without it getting that hot. And, usually, our hottest days are in July or early August. I hope you get some relief soon. I've been exercising through the heat, so far, but I think I'll do something indoors for at least one of those 100-degree days.
onebyone: I'm needing a lot more water when I walk in the heat -- a surprising amount, actually.
ennay: hope you find your hs. I sometimes turn my keyboard over and shake it to fix stuck keys.
Tuesday - U.S. Constitution ratified (New Hampshire, 1788)
Diet Coaches/Buddies – It feels so good to eat normal food for a day, CREDIT moi. Dinner didn't happen until after an evening bird walk so it finished about 9 p.m. It did feel a bit strange to end so late.
Walk, CREDIT moi, just checked out that everything is green-green-green everywhere. Some exercise on the evening bird walk. Evening is not the best time to observe birds, but once a year on summer solstice we hold an evening bird walk that brings out folks who've never gone looking for birds before. It's just fun.
onebyone – Thanks for the link to the Strawberry Moon. Yep, drinking more water is a sane idea in this heat.
Joy (gardenerjoy) – LOL at "my boring food plan" - whatever it takes. My brain turned off when I went to the supermarket yesterday; I picked up our standard box of washed lettuce. Ouch! DW was, at that very moment, picking a giant bag of lettuce from our garden.
maryann - We absolutely loved the "Strandbeests" when they visited Boston. I want me one. Relaxing overlooking the bay sounds like just the best.
nationalparker – Kudos for those 45 minutes on the bike - at whatever speed.
Karen (karenrn) - I hope your temperatures aren't as hot as local papers are reporting. I can well imagine that you deserve to give yourself great credit for fixing your air conditioners before the crowd went looking after this heat wave broke theirs. Yay for good fruit.
ennay - Kudos for not wanting those cookies - that's from clean eating.
Readers -
Quote:
Chapter 6 Family Traps
Escape the Me-Last Martyr Trap
Do you fall into this trap? Sometimes putting yourself last is so habitual that you don't even realize you're doing it. To identify the changes you need to make, imagine an alternate reality. If you knew for sure that your family would happily go along with anything you wanted, what would you do differently?
Consider how the status quo has been interfering with your ability to lose weight.
Identify sabotaging thoughts. Do you believe, for example, that you have to make your family happy no matter what? If you're hesitant to put yourself first, ask yourself, "Isn't it okay for family members to be inconvenienced or slightly uncomfortable for an important cause?"
Assess whether you're viewing changes in an all-or-nothing way. Are you assuming that any change you make has to be permanent or not at all? Or that if they're not happy about a change now, they'll never accept it?
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Deborah Beck Busis, The Diet Trap Solution, Train Your Brain to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good (Blue book), pg. 122
Not a perfect day yesterday. Calories a little over and too many cherries. The only exercise was housework, but I did get all the floors done and dusting, which I find I like the least. In the afternoon I started packing for Flagstaff and made a couple of backpacking meals from dehydrated ingredients I purchased. i wouldn't necessarily have to eat that as we will be car camping, but I want to be sure I like it okay before I take it on a real backpacking trip where I need to eat it. My friend Carrie has decided to come to Flagstaff so that will be nice to have someone riding with me.
Yesterday I got the Green Book out and today I read the first chapter. It inspires me to read again about strengthening the resistance muscle. My plan is to read a chapter a day. I have a very comfortable chair with ottoman in the office where I sit to read or talk on the phone and I finally had dh carry a small side table in from the spare bedroom. Now I actually have a place to put my cup of coffee. It's amazing how just these little things make me so happy.
I'll be heading to the Y shortly and will do 60 to 90 minutes of elliptical and/or treadmill and then the Group Power class. That will feel good and I need to get used to the gym because at this point it is just too hot to exercise outdoors.
Bill Amazing how our normal food choices taste so good after over indulging for a day or two.
GardenerJoy I'm thinking my boring diet would rival/beat yours at least this week. I baked some chicken breasts and we're having a salad with chicken breast every night this week with some slight variations. I just don't want to heat up the house by cooking. I'm so glad that dh and I are both just fine with it. And you know when we're not, Scottsdale has about one million restaurants.
Ennay Your post with lack of h's reminds me of some of those things posted on FB that say, "Can you read this?" and the words have only the first and last letter in place and all the middle letters are rearranged or whatever. I'm always amazed that I can read them. I think most people can; our brains are pretty incredible. As for the heat, I'm just doing the errands earlier in the day and not going to worry about outside exercise. I just feel so bad for those who have lost their life, unfortunately for no good reason, exercising in the heat. And of course for the homeless. The city uses air conditioned buses as a place to cool down for those without a home and the shelters stay open longer hours. What a blessing to have a home and one that is cool, or at least cool enough.
Nationalparker Good for you for getting on the bike. You know some time the motivation follows. If I had to wait to be motivated every time I wanted to do better with my food plan I would never get started. As for eating lunch in parts. There are days I'm just really hungry and eat lunch at 10:00 and then I am fine until dinner.
Maryann Your weather sounds absolutely divine. I love ours about 8 months of the year. I live in Scottsdale, not Tucson, but I do hike in the Tucson area occasionally.
Onebyone Good luck with kicking sugar to the curb. I try to leave it alone as much as possible. It seems once I go without for a day or two I'm fine. When I eat it more often, I want it daily.
Well, I had better get going and head out to the gym.
karenrn - OK, just to show you how much of a weather wimp I really am. I went for my walk/run today. It was at the edge of pleasant for me. I got back and thought "That was about as hot as I could have handled and still ran" It was 68. When I was marathoning I would get up and run before dawn so I could run at 40 all the time.
A good day here for the most part. Able to catch up with a friend observing Ramadan after work just standing around, chatting, and it was a good mental nudge to me about seriously how little food we can intake and still be absolutely fine. Stopped at the market to pick up a few ($$) things to finish off meals for which I'd already bought most of the ingredients. Tonight we used up leftover Spanish rice/black beans/corn and made burrito bowls with pico de gallo, chicken and lettuce. Comes together quickly.
Got out my pink book and started reading the first chapter. I'll finish that before wrapping it up tonight. Tomorrow's goals are to bike again for just 45 minutes. Get it done. And get in extra water, no snacking and continue on in Beck's book. I think those four things will help me make better choices.
Forgot to check in earlier, so turned on the computer, but getting back offline to enjoy the rest of the evening. I want a cup of tea and that'll be a good "dessert" and evening wrapup.
Diet Coaches/Buddies – Walk, CREDIT moi, started at the Electric Vehicle charging station at the nearby shopping center while my car sucked down FREE electricity. By walking while my car charged instead of browsing the bookstore I saved a fortune.
Eating was on plan, CREDIT moi, although my afternoon snack was a cookie left over from the wedding this weekend. I'm sure that I didn't pick it up at the reception from a basket of them - wrapped in gay wedding celebration plastic for guests as they walked out. But it made its way to our house and I was the designated person to eat it. Never was there lamer excuse for consuming a cookie.
Karen (karenrn) - In my humble opinion, it's not possible to have "too many cherries" - they're fruit and fruit is good for you, LOL.
nationalparker – Yay for a cup of tea for "dessert" - although it might be a tad unkind to mention that in front of an Arizona resident given the current heat there. The Pink Book never goes out of style.
ennay - Yep, it's rough when it gets as hot as 68.
Readers -
Quote:
Chapter 6 Family Traps
Creating Escape Plans for Family Traps
Maxine's and Mia's stories are classic family dilemmas we see quite often in our practice. History, personalities, and family dynamics can make family interaction and gatherings into a minefield when you're trying to lose weight. Still, the foundation strategies and the strategies in this chapter can help you solve family problems, whether they're related to others' comments and actions or to your own sabotaging thoughts and behavior.
Create your own escape plans:
Identify a future situation in which a family trap might arise.
Record your sabotaging thoughts.
Write a compelling response to each sabotaging thought.
Develop a list of strategies.
Review and revise your escape plan often.
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Deborah Beck Busis, The Diet Trap Solution, Train Your Brain to Lose Weight and Keep It Off for Good (Blue book), pg. 123
It has been crazy hot here although it rained a bit Monday afternoon. Monday after work my friend and I went up and put black plastic on the roof where we had torn the old stuff off. Yesterday after work I climbed the ladder in my work clothes and rolled the plastic back. We really need things to dry. It looks like we could get rain later this afternoon but our first order of business this morning is to pull out the wet insulation and assess the situation while the tenant is at work. It will be a yucky job but we have a plan. After I had returned home yesterday the neighbor boy said he had an hour to help. I went back up to the project and we loaded all the old roofing into his pick up truck and took it to the landfill. As I always say, every small step forward.
Food is good and scale is just OK. Not rising not lowering. I except my maintenance with gratitude.
I am very envious of my hubby right now. Missing Alaska. Very joyous time of year in the land of the midnight sun. I am determined Be happy for him right now and not let it get me down. I enclosed a photo that his niece took on solstice. His enclave is to the far right. The house with the big blue roof is an island within the islands and he has his own studio And hot tub. LOL to life in the wilderness. They are 5 miles from the mainland. Boats, floatplanes and a few ATVs, and horses, too.
I'd Best get moving.My smoothie is ready. I need to get my supplies ready which includes bringing the bakeshop back up from the basement. Lots of spontaneous exercise these days.
I didn't do quite as well yesterday. I notice that I've been experiencing a desire to be full in recent days. I suspect that's a danger sign, although I'm not quite sure what to do about it now that I've identified it. Today presents a number of challenges. Fortunately, eating normally isn't likely to be one of them.
One of today's challenges is a high of 101. I've been walking on hot days, but that's too hot, even for me. I'll do a stretching / strength-training workout because I need a bit of variety anyway.
Well we in California will join the rest of the nation this week with a high of 107 by Friday. But it is a dry heat (as they say ) I walked at 6:45 and it was beautiful. Yesterday, I really began pushing myself on the bike at the gym and focusing on my PT exercises. I finally feel some strength coming back after all the health issues. I am determined to use this summer vacation to get healthier mentally and physically.
I downloaded a bootleg points calculator for the WW plan.Then I spent an entire morning in my grocery store scanning items for points value. I purchased several; most of them are very healthy. The house is stocked. I pre-portioned some things and am stockpiling others for my trip to LA next week. I have put my food in the tracker. Although the scale is frozen, I will not be defeated. I have decide that for this week I will not use my bonus points and or my activity points. Hopefully that will give me a loss by next week.
This week, I will putter with DS. These summer days are precious because I know how little time relatively speaking he will be here with us. Four years will be a blink and two of those will be when he has a license. Yikes.
As for cherries, I took and hour to pit fresh ones art month and frozen them all. I agree with BBE - they have no calories.
On plan with the food yesterday, credit. Exercise yesterday was elliptical and then the Group Power class. I had planned to go back and hit the treadmill for a bit after class, but Salvation Army called and they were at my house early to pick up the old mattress. Thank goodness they waited for me. This morning I got out to the Y early and did the elliptical and the treadmill, credit. I'm home today waiting for the new mattress to be delivered. Last night we slept in the twin bed guest room and my husband swears that firmer mattress was great. The new mattress we purchased is very firm, so I hope it does the trick for him. I noticed the last mattress we purchased in 2010 and it wasn't cheap, but not good for him.
I read the second chapter of the Green Book this morning. I'm finding it a very good refresher.
Maryann I'm so glad you have the summer break to focus on getting healthier. That's what it's all about for me these days, looks are so secondary. I'm sorry your weather will be so hot. I'm so glad to have the gym at this time of the year.
GardenerJoy You too with the heat, huh? I find it just impossible to be exercising outdoors in these temps. When I got up this morning at 4 am no less, it was 90 degrees. It did get down to a low of 88. I could have gone for a walk but I figured my workout at the cooler gym would probably be better.
Lexxis I would have a very hard time not wanting to be in Alaska with dh. Just absolutely beautiful. I've not been to Alaska but sure hope to go one of these days.
Bill What a great thing to go plug in the car for free and get a walk in. That is super. I wonder how that cookie did get into your house?
Nationalparker Your burrito bowls sound delicious. And your plans of exercise, reading Beck, more water and no snacking are sure to be a winning combination. I'm just trying to do it without constantly thinking about it.
Ennay Yep, you're a weather wimp all right. I'll admit that my favorite hiking temps are in the high 50's, but I'll go out and hike up to mid 80's especially if I can hike before the sun is hitting me. Maybe in a week or so I'll get out there again. In the meantime I'm heading north for a couple of days on Friday and then to California on Monday.
Strawberry Moon in June Monday
Tuesday - U.S. Constitution ratified (New Hampshire, 1788)
When I was marathoning I would get up and run before dawn so I could run at 40 all the time.
